Continuity

First Appearance

Last Appearance

The Simian FluPandemic is a major event in the film Rise of the Planet of the Apes which determined the fate of mankind. At the company Gen-Sys Laboratories, scientist Will Rodman created a supposed cure for Alzheimer's Disease, the ALZ-112. He tested it on a female chimpanzee nicknamed Bright Eyes. Bright Eyes gained heightened intelligence in the process, but went on a rampage, believing her newborn child would be threatened by the humans who held her captive. Bright Eyes, unfortunately, was executed shortly after her attack. Will, feeling sorry for her abandoned newborn son, adopted the baby chimp and named him Caesar, after his father (who had Alzheimer's) quoted Julius Caesar. Caesar was shown to have inherited heightened intelligence from his mother, and proved to be smarter than his human counterparts.

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When Will tested the ALZ-112 on his father, his father seemed to have improved, but his dementia returned after his immune system fought off the ALZ-112. Meanwhile, Will managed to produce an entirely new cure called ALZ-113. This cure gave apes an even greater sense of intelligence, and due to this fact, Will attempted to test the 113 on his father, but Charles refused and died soon after. Will discovered that the 113 had been recklessly being tested on the other chimps, ordered by his boss, Steven Jacobs ignoring Will's warnings about the risks he is taking. Robert Franklin did not have his mask on when the scientists were testing the ALZ-113 on Koba. Robert Franklin's next mistake was trying to get to Will Rodman, who wasn't home. Instead, Hunsiker came and Franklin sneezed on Hunsiker, which agitated Hunsiker and told Franklin to leave. The nurse, Dottie, who was looking after Franklin saw him dead on his bed by observing his infected hand. Franklin was externally bleeding out black blood all over his body, even after he died.[1]

After Caesar and the apes escaped into the Muir Woods to live there, Douglas Hunsiker, the Rodman's neighbor had his finger bandaged and arrived to work at the airport in San Francisco. It is shown that Hunsiker was dripping blood from his nose, a symptom of the ALZ-113 virus. Refusing to forgo getting paid, Hunsiker proceeded to his job which spread the virus to people at the airport and on the airplane that he piloted, which went to Paris, France before travelling to Moussoro, Chad before spreading it to cities across Asia such as New Delhi, Beijing and Tokyo. After that he flew to Seattle, USA. Eventually Hunsiker presumably died, but not before unknowingly bringing the virus to Europe, which proceeded to spread across the continent and then the globe via international flight routes.[1]

A day after the Monkeygate scandal occurred, the confirmed deaths of eight people from the virus in the San Francisco area prompted the
CDC and the WHO to declare a medical emergency and implement quarantine procedures. Less than a week later, the nationwide death toll had reached over 250,000. With no sign of a cure, San Francisco went into chaos, with citizens looting pharmacies and overwhelming hospitals. The breakdown of law and order resulted in the intervention of the National Guard, and the appearance of various domestic terrorist groups, including Alpha-Omega and separatists in southern California. In Tennessee, Muslims were used as scapegoats, and many were beaten to death. The U.S. Secretary of Health made a speech that if you had a cough or sore throat, then stay home. Once the connection between the virus and the escaped evolved apes became public knowledge, rioting mobs broke into various zoos and began killing apes, monkeys, and all other superficially simian-like mammals like tarsiers and sloths.[2] Hospitals soon became flooded with patients and were all showing signs of the "simian flu".

The Old World faired no better than the New. As in San Francisco, numerous major cities in Eurasia, including London, Paris, Rome and Shanghai saw widespread rioting and looting. The president of France organised evacuation routes but with no avail. In Belarus, an understaffed nuclear power plant went into meltdown. In the former Yugoslavia, fighting broke out between Serbs and Croats, with similar conflicts being reported among Hutus and Tutsis in Africa and Sunnis and Shi'ites in the Muslim world. In eastern China, the government went on a brutal crackdown of rebelling ethnic minorities. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, fighting broke out between North and South Kivu, dividing the region on ethnic and tribal grounds. Indonesia saw fewer cases of infection, and closed its borders. In Egypt, Muslims began burning Christians alive, and in India, a chemical spill in the Ganges resulted in some people seeing the burning river as a religious sign, and began immolating themselves in its waters.[2]

Martial law was declared in 28 nations including the United States and Canada. Later on, all regular government functions were suspended indefinitely. Human civilization ultimately collapsed as civil unrest and economic collapse destroyed every country in the world. By this time humanity had been shattered with only isolated survivor groups scattered across the globe.

By the time the events of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes occur, human civilization has long since collapsed. The species as a whole has survived, but it is presumed that a large percentage of the global population is dead from either the Simian Flu or the resulting collapse of society. Small pockets of humans still exist, however. Humans immune to, or having avoided infection from, the Simian Flu have started small isolated colonies in the ruins of cities or elsewhere. One such human colony in San Francisco end up having a confrontation with a colony of genetically evolved apes.

In War for the Planet of the Apes, it is revealed that the Simian flu has evolved, instead of killing humans it makes them mute. The mutated virus may also make apes progressively more intelligent. At this point, the Simian Flu created a second civil war for the United States. The surviving humans became so desperate to contain the virus because they were heavily outnumbered by infected humans that they created a military faction designated to exterminate all infected humans that carry the virus. The infected humans resisted this and formed their own counteractive military to wage war on the surviving humans.

Statistics taken from the promotional viral video ("1/10 survives"), suggest that 90% of the human population of the planet is dead. This would equate to approximately 700,086,200 survivors and 6,300,775,800 casualties. However, the numbers are given in the opening scene ("1/500") imply only 14,001,724 living and 6,986,860,276 dead.

In War of the Planet of the Apes, the Colonel states the new mutated virus will make humanity more "feral" and "animalistic," implying that it decreases intelligence. However this is contradicted by Nova, who was infected with the virus but was still able to quickly learn sign language by observing other Apes.

In the video game Plague Inc: Evolved, you are able to take control of a Simian Flu Virus (or game you can optionally rename it yourself). The 2 outcomes that can happen are: 1: The Virus can be eradicated but cause minor/major changes into human civilization. 2: You can take control of the earth with the Genetically enhanced apes.